October 25, 2007

Wow. A reporter from Knight Ridder — Knight Ridder, I tell you! — writes a blog post disrespecting an American soldier who had never heard of Knight Ridder — Knight Ridder, I tell you! — and one commenter after another tells him what an insufferable, ungrateful jackass he is. (Via Instapundit.)

At comment #67, Arthur writes:

The amazing thing is not that there are 63 comments, almost all them hammering this clown, but that the clown didn’t realize that by posting his story that everybody who WASN’T a journalist would call him out. These MSM guys are in a universe all to themselves.

Amazingly too, the reporter — Bobby Calvan — left the comments up until nearly 200 nasty — deservedly nasty — comments were posted. Finally, he took down the post, but not before it was preserved (at the link above). The smackdown in the comments is so satisfying and entertaining that I'm doing my part to make this viral, but I did start to feel a little sorry for the... jackass. Glad I’m Not You said, at comment #82:

I’m so glad I’m 42. When I was young and immature, like you, and I made an ass out of myself it was usually in a room with a Fire Marshal-rated capacity of under 100 people. Even if the place was full and each person told two friends what I did, I was still under the 300 mark of people I needed to avoid for a week. And since memories are short and someone else was bound to make an ass out of themselves in a relatively short amount of time it never really mattered that much. But you, Bobby, have the distinction of making an ass of yourself on the World Wide Web, which is currently accessable by just over 1.2 billion human beings. On top of that, your friends - and apparently rather plentiful enemies - can now copy-cut-paste your idiocy and keep it forever. And ever. And ever.

Bobby, in the year 2065, when you are 80 or so, you will receive an email with this blog post in it. All of it. Each. And. Every. Word.

I’m so glad I’m 42. And not you.

Best of luck with that reporter thing.

That's the closest he gets to a shred of sympathy for his horrible, distorted self-importance. And then there's the mock sympathy. Drew Cloutier said:

Dude, I can’t believe how all of these commenters like don’t get it. I’m with you. You were being hassled by The Man and you were like so cool. I hate it when I like go to an airport and those TSA yahoos are all like, “Take your computer out of your bag” and “Take of your shoes off” and sh*t like that. Like, whatz their problem. Its not like I’m Richard effing Reid. Next time that happens to me, I’m like going to go all Bobby Calvan on their asses. I’ll pretend like I’m taking down their names (they’ll sh*t their pants at that just like I bet that solider did). I’ll make a press Knight Ridder pass up on my computer (dude, I wish I had a real one like you) and yell “What the hell good is this if I have to be treated like an effing terrorist.” I’ll tell them that I work for a big corporation where we all drive talking cars and they are just peons who probably didn’t graduate from high school. Man, you’re my hero. All these damn Chimpy McHitlerburton clones pretending like they are protecting us when all they are doing is oppressing us. Ignore all of these commenters and just keeping on being you.

38 comments:

Some people get aggressive when they realize they've done something stupid, like forgetting their ID, but to brag about it afterwards, unless you're poking fun at yourself, is doubly arrogant. Very funny and just comments.

I couldn't say about the Army, but I used to laugh at television shows where someone dresses up as a General and breezes through US military security (usually with a non-reg hair cut) because *my* training in security was to require Generals to toe the line.

The Air Force is unique in that way but not *that* unique.

And some fellow on the line is supposed to bend rules for a journalist who don't need no stinking badges?

I thought Knight Ridder was the show where the Hoff had a talking car before he became a drunk and all his appliances started talking to him. If our soldiers do not know their seventies TV trivia, then the terrorists have won.

In other words... it's not a bug of the US military it's a feature, that "important people" aren't waved through security. It's evidence of our egalitarian society and the fact that we view people has having equal importance rather than being rude to those beneath us and toadying to those above.

The "rude" soldier most likely treats a person in rags *well* when they come through security. I wonder if that can be said for the Peruvians or Ugandans.

Calvan was a reporter for the Sacramento Bee before this, the very first McClatchy paper. Like Joanne Jacobs (in his comments section), I am surprised he is using a press pass from the defunct Knight-Ridder (McClatchy bought K-R in March of 2006). In the post prior to the one linked to here, docweasel posts an email exchange between himself and Calvan, wherein Calvan apologizes. I imagine that the boss told Calvan to delete the blog entirely when he or she first heard about it.

Ah this brought me back to my dealings in Iraq with the press. Almost all were so pompous, so self-rightous. From the same cut as the young SOBs at State. Both liked to lecture me about how I was "doing it all wrong" but then choked when I suggested a trip outside the gates for a reality check.

Still this type was good for a couple of things - the cool air from their AC always felt delicious when it was bistering out. The gate guard probably kept him there for a few extra minutes just to enjoy the "free air", watch his head spin, and of course just jerk a reporter's chain... I can just hear that guard's story once he got back to his rack. His squad is gonna be wetting their ACUs.

I don't know why but this reminded me of long ago when I was first assigned to the Pentagon. I was a lowly PFC and had never seen an officer in person higher than a Lt Col.

My first day there and I was just walking up to the door when a limo pulled up and 6 generals got out with a 2-star being the lowest ranking. I was scared to death. I got up the stairs and a 3-star general held the door for me to walk in and told me good morning. I realized later that it was just common courtesy but not what I would at the time have expected from such a high ranking officer.

Now compare and contrast those generals with this reporter called Bobby. Which would ou rather have dealings with. Then compare and contrast the generals with the soldier. Seems cut from the same cloth to me and the soldier deserves respect for what he did.

What I want to read are the next reports by this idiot Bobby when he writes about more from Baghdad. What tack will he take now about how he reports the military. If he goes all ballistic on them he will be accused of trying to get back at them and if he goes all soft he will be accused of trying to curry favor. He has just put a big dent in any credibility he might have had - but then he is a journalist so he probably didn't have much.

"...the way: is pinoy a PC term? should us gringos be using it? or is strictly appropriate for Filipinos"

Buh? PC?? It's always been a neutral term in my book. And in God knows how many other Filipino's books too; I've seen all sorts of fliers, small Filipino-community newspapers, and stuff that start out "Hey! All pinoys & pinays", or something like that, not to mention the overproliferation of web sites, blogs, and web ads using that word. Or TV shows; did anyone know there's a Pinoy Big Brother?

To me, "flip" or "chink" were the terms used when someone was trying to offend, and "pinoy" (or "pinay", for females) was absolutely innocuous.

But will someone somewhere start thinking "pinoy" isn't PC? The cynic in me says, "Probably". It seems that someone will find some way to make one term proper and all other terms so improper they're disrespectful and therefore racist. I remember at one point some folks trying to tell me that "Pilipino" was the proper spelling, since the Philippines was named after one of the Spanish King Phillips, yadda yadda, and that "filipino" was the racist form. That one left me with a question mark hovering over my head, as I've never seen a Filipino spell it "Pilipino". And the explanation of why it's racist - "That's how non-'Pilipino's' pronounce it" - really amused me, since 1. That's also how every full blooded Filipino I've ever met said it, and 2. Getting picky about spellings in a country where "Pulis" cars cohabitate the same station as "Police" ones (I'm not kidding; just go to Metro Cebu City to see this for yourself) is just asking for Filipinos to nod nicely, then bust out laughing when you leave the room.

Anyway, I don't know if folks will start declaring "pinoy" racist or offensive, but I sure as hell don't see it that way. So it doesn't matter to me if gringos, latinos, Europeans, Slavics, or whomever wants to use it. It's all fine by me.

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Ps. Must edit... "That jerk's a pinoy??"to"That jerk's pinoy??"

Shows you how Filipino I am... gimme a break, I grew up here in the states, my Tagalog is not even kindergarten-level awful and my Bisayan's practically nonexistent...

As far right as I am (Reaganite/Thacherite sort of views), I actually find Michelle Malkin somewhat annoying. I can simply not agree with how far she takes some things, even though I find myself to the right of her on other stuff. I actually stopped reading her some months ago.

The Filipino I read is the Australian pseudonymed Wretchard (a.k.a. Richard Fernandez) who blogs at Belmont Club and contributes to PajamasMedia.com. I find him a hell of a lot more intelligent, not to mention talented.

Thanks for the link Ms. Althouse, you're one of my bloggy heroes so its especially gratifying when you link me.

I also have some emails I exchanged with him (mentioned on USA Today’s blog,

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/10/reporter-wrote-.html

of all places, with quotes from some guy purporting to be “Doc Weasel” (if that IS his real name) and a letter from the SacBee server claiming to be from a co-worker defending him. Dan Riehl is also doing some great investigative work on Calvan’s background.

"With nothing to lose I decided to get pushy.I asked him how he could not possibly know that Knight Ridder was one of the country’s largest newspaper chains. I told him that we’re bigger than the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times.“I’m from Atlanta. I only know the Journal,” he said.“I thought you said you also knew the Miami Herald,” I retorted.“We’re bigger than the Journal,” I replied. “You never heard of Knight Ridder?”He didn’t want to be embarrassed. He already looked irritated. He asked me if I knew the number of the military’s media office."